The government of British Columbia has reauthorized a tax credit for video game companies that was set to expire in September of this year. The tax credit, which has been extended to 2018, gives video game companies situated in British Columbia a 17.5 percent tax credit on labor costs related to video game production.

United States Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) today reintroduced the bipartisan Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a companion measure by voice vote last Congress. Sen. Wyden is the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, while Sen. Thune is chairman of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.

A top New York State Senator admits that lawmakers are not doing enough to attract the video game and tech industries to the Empire State, but will make it his top priority in 2015. New York State Senator Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) believes other states and parts of Canada are beating New York State in attracting gaming and biotech companies.

Nintendo says that it will no longer sell games and game systems in Brazil because the tariffs on this sector are just too high. While Nintendo says the departure from the market is temporary, the company did not indicate if and when it would return. In an interview with UOL Games, Bill Van Zyll, Nintendo of America's director and general manager for Latin America, said the following:

In this interesting article on 2015 tax policy plans for lawmakers, Politico highlights one tax issue that all of us should pay attention to: Internet sales tax. The bill that passed the Senate last year (The Marketplace Fairness Act) but floundered in the House because some lawmakers didn't like many of its provisions, may get a resurrection of sorts this year.

Puerto Rico has implemented a tax incentive plan which gives a 40 percent tax credit on salaries and production costs on projects with budgets of $100,000 or higher, and the first company to take advantage of it is Juan-based Space Rhino Games. The company is currently hard at work on Breach TD, a tower defense game that was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign in June.

UK video games industry trade body Tiga says that games should officially be recognized as art. Speaking to BBC's Newsbeat program, Tiga CEO Dr. Richard Wilson said that video games should officially be classified as cultural products on the same level as Television, film, animation, etc.

The British Film Institute, which awards certificates for tax credits from the British government, has selected 13 projects - two of which are being kept secret - which passed the cultural test and will get tax relief.

A new report released by the Entertainment Software Association (the trade group representing the interactive entertainment industry in the United States), details the healthy state of the computer and video game industry in Texas, which it says grew by nearly 16 percent from 2009 to 2012.

The ESA report also revealed that the video games industry added $764 million to the state's economy and the number of video game-related companies doing business in Texas grew from 80 in 2009 to 127 in 2012.

According to this BBC report, "tens of thousands" of Hungarian citizens have taken to the streets of Budapest to protest a proposed tax aimed at consumers who use the Internet. The BBC is calling it the "biggest anti-government demonstration" in years. Smaller rallies were held in other Hungarian cities as well.

Video game industry trade group TIGA has called on the British government to greenlight tax relief that can be put towards helping small business - including video game studios - train their employees in important technical and productivity skills.

These tax breaks would be open to small to medium-sized businesses and would allow them to offset expenditures on employee training, continuous professional development and education outreach activities against corporation tax.

Senator Tom Coburn's 2014 Wastebook report is out, detailing all the tax payer-funded programs that the Republican Senator from Oklahoma thinks are wasteful or pork barrel spending. While he offers plenty of red meat for fiscally conservative types, we are really only interested in what game related items made the cut this year.

UK video game trade body TIGA has put forth a proposal calling on the British government to create a new Creative Content Fund for video games to the tune of £3 million ($4.9 million) annually. Last month the British government finalized tax breaks for video game production cost to companies that create games that can pass a British cultural test. Naturally TIGA was delighted with this news, after fighting several years to get them on behalf of the shrinking video game industry, but now the trade group wants more.

Developers of video games that are deemed "culturally British" can claim tax relief on some of the production costs in the United Kingdom thanks to a new tax relief scheme that officially went into effect in the region yesterday.

Under the newly implemented plan, game developers and publishers can claim a tax credit of up to 25 percent on qualifying production costs associated with producing games that are certified by the BFI as culturally British.

Martin Carrier, head of the Canadian video game lobby group Alliance Numérique, says that cuts to tax credits and incentives for the video games industry in Quebec will likely drive companies away from the region to Ontario, The United States, or even Europe.

Throughout the US and around the world, game developers are fighting for tax incentives and breaks similar to those offered to other creative industries such as the movie industry. Many groups such as TIGA in the UK make the claim that such tax breaks are needed in order to compete with other nations for game development talent, competition created in part by the tax breaks and incentives offered in those competing nations.

While these fights for increased tax breaks rage on, one question seems to remain unasked. Are these tax incentives worth the trouble?

TIGA, the trade group that represents the video games industry in the UK, announced that it will facilitate a series of events around the country to help developers understand the importance of the new Games Tax Relief recently approved by the government. The tour will start in Oxford, England sometime in May, and all of the events will be free for developers to attend. These events will feature input from UK industry veterans as well.

With it being tax season, what better story is there than a cautionary tale on what happens when you actively try to avoid paying taxes? According to news channel ABC 6, 49-year-old Lisa L. Harper (formerly) from Dublin, Ohio, has pled guilty to one count of committing income tax evasion with the Internal Revenue Service for the 2008 income tax year.

The UK Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries said that, now that the UK video games industry is confirmed to get tax relief, he wants the sector to focus on bringing more youngsters into the business, as opposed to spending that money on hiring from outside the region. Last week the European Parliament gave the greenlight to the scheme, much to the delight of the industry in the UK and the members of parliament that have long supported giving tax incentives to the sector.

The 2014 budget has been passed in the United Kingdom, but once again this year tax relief for the video games industry in the region were not included. UKIE CEO Jo Twist described the ongoing struggle to get tax relief included in the budget "frustrating." The campaign for tax relief similar to what is enjoyed by the film and TV industries has been going on for years, but there were high hopes from the sector and the trade groups representing it in the UK that it would happen this year.

With the House Judiciary Committee set to hold a hearing on "Exploring Alternative Solutions to the Internet Sales Tax Issue" soon, the National Governors Association (NGA) today released a statement reiterated its strong support for the passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) today presented Texas Gov. Rick Perry (and former Republican presidential candidate) an award for his efforts to create jobs, provide tax incentives and generally foster the growth of the computer and video game industry in the state. ESA president and CEO Michael D. Gallagher presented the award to the Governor and praised him for his "longstanding support for the industry" during an award ceremony at the historic Governor’s Mansion.

Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) said in a new report that it would push hard for the passage of an national Internet sales tax law and for better data privacy regulations this year. In its annual policy agenda, the trade group highlighted the issues it deemed to be of grave importance this year. A federal law to deal with online sales tax is at the top of the list. The group, which represents traditional retailers, believes that having a national sales tax collection law will levy the playing field so that online-only retailers don't have an advantage.

If you live in Japan you already know that the government taxes games (and other physical goods) with a consumption tax that are imported from outside the country, but that tax will soon be applied to digital purchases as well, according to this Kotaku report.

According to a brief report in Tax News the French government is pushing to reform the country's video games tax credit (known as the CIJV). French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti, Budget Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, and Innovation Minister Fleur Pellerin, have all embraced the French National Assembly's adoption of plans to reform the country's video games tax credit (CIJV).

Buried in a story about a number of companies seeking incentives from the Illinois state legislature being held up by a veto by Governor Pat Quinn over a lack of pension reform, High Voltage Software's name popped up. Apparently Fred Crespo, a Hoffman Estates (a northwestern suburb of Chicago) Democrat, is pushing incentives legislation for the company, which is headquartered in his district.

Despite opposition from fellow House members and a majority of constituents, some Republican lawmakers are pushing forward with Internet tax proposals as part of a comprehensive package on the topic similar to the Senate's Marketplace Fairness Act.

From the "we-could-have-told-you-that-without-a-poll department" comes this story from Politico about the public's opposition to Internet taxes. The polls - conducted for two separate conservative groups - found that most voters oppose federal Internet sales tax legislation and suggested that lawmakers who voted for it could face serious challenges in the 2014 mid-term elections.

Massachusetts State Rep. John Binienda (D-Worcester) is pushing for more tax incentives for the state's video games industry. It makes sense, given that Worcester is home to several video game development-focused colleges including Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and MassDIGI at Becker College.

On Sept. 10 the state lawmaker gave testimony promoting House Bill 2511, a bill he is the lead sponsor of that would extend a 25 percent tax credit currently given to the movie industry to game design and development within the state.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm